Israeli artist Noga Erez took a moment during her weekend one Coachella performance to express her gratitude for her fans amid Israel‘s ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
Erez delivered a 45-minute set on the California festival’s Gobi Stage on Saturday to quite a sizeable crowd.
At one point, she stopped to address what’s happening back home. “I just want to say one thing: you don’t get to play a stage like this every day,” she said in an emotional speech. “I come from a very, very, very complex part of this planet, and to get us all here doing this was kind of like forces that I didn’t know that I had.”
“I’m so, so grateful to be here,” she continued as her fans cheered. “And at the same time, I’m just heartbroken and sad because of things that are happening at home and around it. I just love this music thing so much, and right now, doing this thing is exactly what I’m doing it for, [which] is to put a bunch of strangers together and make them feel like a family united around something. Thank you so much for giving me this.”
Erez’s emotions were likely heightened during her performance at the major California music festival because one of the major attacks during the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel happened during the Nova music festival, where hundreds were killed by Hamas militants.
Since that day, Israel has been involved in an ongoing, multi-front war that has expanded to a broader crisis in the Middle East. In addition to Gaza, Israel’s military confrontations with Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, the West Bank and Iran have also intensified, the latter of which has also been engaged in a military conflict with the U.S. in recent months.
Erez’s Coachella performance also came a month before the Eurovision Song Contest, which has been met with controversy over Israel’s participation in the global music competition. Some countries and participants have objected to Israel’s taking part in the contest due to the devastating war in Gaza.
Eurovision has implemented new rules around its voting system after Israeli entrant Yuval Raphael placing second at the final last year caused an uproar and accusations of vote manipulation.
